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Academism is the art of the “golden mean. Healthy and smart furniture from Lotusov lake design studio Krasnodar

Academism is the art of the “golden mean. Healthy and smart furniture from Lotusov lake design studio Krasnodar

09.07.2019

(French academisme)- a direction in European painting of the 17th-19th centuries. Academic painting arose during the development of art academies in Europe. The stylistic basis of academic painting at the beginning of the 19th century was classicism, in the second half of the 19th century - eclecticism.

The history of the development of Academism is connected with the "Academy of those who have embarked on the right path" in Bologna (c. 1585), the French Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture (1648) and the Russian "Academy of the Three Most Noble Arts" (1757).

The activities of all academies were based on a strictly regulated system of education, focused on the great achievements of previous eras - antiquity and the Italian Renaissance, from which certain qualities of classical art were consciously selected, which were considered ideal and unsurpassed. And the very word “academy” emphasized continuity with the ancient classics (Greek Academia is a school founded by Plato in the 4th century BC and got its name from a sacred grove near Athens, where the ancient Greek hero Academ was buried).

Russian academism of the first half of the 19th century is characterized by sublime themes, high metaphorical style, versatility, multi-figures and pomposity. Biblical scenes, salon landscapes and ceremonial portraits were popular. Despite the limited subject matter of the paintings, the works of the academicians were distinguished by their high technical skill.

Karl Bryullov, observing academic canons in composition and painting technique, expanded the plot variations of his work beyond the limits of canonical academism. In the course of its development in the second half of the 19th century, Russian academic painting included elements of the romantic and realistic traditions. Academism as a method is present in the work of most members of the "Wanderers" association. Later on, Russian academic painting was characterized by historicism, traditionalism and elements of realism.

The concept of academism has now gained additional meaning and has come to be used to describe the work of artists who have a systematic education in the field of visual arts and classical skills in creating works of high technical level. The term "academicism" now often refers to the description of the construction of composition and performance technique, and not to the plot of a work of art.

In recent years, interest in academic painting of the 19th century and its development in the 20th century has increased in Western Europe and the United States. Modern interpretations of academicism are present in the work of such Russian artists as Ilya Glazunov, Alexander Shilov, Nikolai Anokhin, Sergei Smirnov, Ilya Kaverznev and Nikolai Tretyakov.

Details Category: A variety of styles and trends in art and their features Posted on 06/27/2014 16:37 Views: 4009

Academism... This word alone evokes deep respect and suggests a serious conversation.

And this is true: academism is characterized by sublimity of themes, metaphor, diversity and, to some extent, even pomposity.
This trend in European painting of the XVII-XIX centuries. was formed on following the external forms of classical art. In other words, this is a rethinking of the art forms of the ancient ancient world and the Renaissance.

Paul Delaroche "Portrait of Peter I" (1838)
In France, Jean Ingres, Alexander Cabanel, William Bouguereau, and others are referred to as representatives of academism. Russian academism manifested itself especially clearly in the first half of the 19th century. He was characterized by biblical scenes, salon landscapes and ceremonial portraits. The works of Russian academicians (Fyodor Bruni, Alexander Ivanov, Karl Bryullov and others) were distinguished by their high technical skill. As an artistic method, academicism is present in the work of most members of the Wanderers Association. Gradually, Russian academic painting began to acquire the features of historicism (the principle of considering the world in dynamics, in a natural historical development), traditionalism (a worldview or socio-philosophical direction that puts practical wisdom expressed in tradition above reason) and realism.

I. Kaverznev "Bright Sunday"
There is also a more modern interpretation of the term "academicism": this is the name of the work of artists who have a systematic art education and classical skills in creating works of a high technical level. The term "academicism" is now more related to the characteristics of the composition and performance technique, but not to the plot of a work of art.

N. Anokhin "Flowers on the piano"
In the modern world, interest in academic painting has increased markedly. As for contemporary artists, the features of academicism are present in the work of many of them: Alexander Shilov, Nikolai Anokhin, Sergei Smirnov, Ilya Kaverznev, Nikolai Tretyakov and, of course, Ilya Glazunov.
And now let's talk about some representatives of academism.

Paul Delaroche (1797-1856)

Famous French historical painter. Born in Paris and developed in an artistic atmosphere among people close to art. As an artist, he initially showed himself in landscape painting, and then became interested in historical subjects. Then he joined the new ideas of the head of the romantic school, Eugene Delacroix. Having a bright mind and a subtle aesthetic sense, Delaroche never exaggerated the drama of the depicted scenes, was not fond of excessive effects, thought deeply about his compositions and used technical means wisely. His paintings of historical subjects were unanimously praised by critics, and they soon became popular thanks to the publication in engravings and lithographs.

P. Delaroche "The Execution of Jane Gray" (1833)

P. Delaroche "The Execution of Jane Gray" (1833). Oil on canvas, 246x297 cm. London National Gallery
Historical painting by Paul Delaroche, first exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1834. The painting, considered lost for almost half a century, was returned to the public in 1975.
Plot: On February 12, 1554, the Queen of England, Mary Tudor, executed the pretender imprisoned in the Tower, the “Queen for Nine Days” Jane Gray and her husband Guildford Dudley. In the morning, Guildford Dudley was publicly beheaded, then in the courtyard near the walls of the church of St. Peter was beheaded by Jane Grey.
There is a legend that before the execution, Jane was allowed to address a narrow circle of those present and distribute the things left with her to her companions. Blindfolded, she lost her bearings and could not find her way to the chopping block on her own: “What should I do now? Where is she [scaffolding]? None of the companions approached Jane, and a random person from the crowd led her to the chopping block.
This moment of near-death weakness is captured in a painting by Delaroche. But he deliberately deviated from the well-known historical circumstances of the execution, depicting not a courtyard, but a gloomy dungeon of the Tower. Jane is dressed in white, although in reality she was wearing simple black clothes.

Paul Delaroche "Portrait of Henriette Sontag" (1831), Hermitage
Delaroche painted beautiful portraits and immortalized with his brush many prominent people of his era: Pope Gregory XVI, Guizot, Thiers, Changarnier, Remus, Pourtales, the singer Sontag and others. The best of his contemporary engravers considered it flattering to reproduce his paintings and portraits.

Alexander Andreevich Ivanov (1806-1858)

S. Postnikov "Portrait of A. A. Ivanov"
Russian artist, creator of works on biblical and ancient mythological subjects, representative of academicism, author of the grandiose canvas “The Appearance of Christ to the People”.
Born in the family of an artist. He studied at the Imperial Academy of Arts with the support of the Society for the Encouragement of Artists under the guidance of his father, professor of painting Andrei Ivanovich Ivanov. He received two silver medals for his success in drawing, in 1824 he was awarded a small gold medal for the painting “Priam asking Achilles for the body of Hector”, written according to the program, and in 1827 he received a large gold medal and the title of an artist of the XIV class for another painting on biblical story. He improved his skills in Italy.
The most important work of his life - the painting "The Appearance of Christ to the People" - the artist wrote for 20 years.

A. Ivanov "The Appearance of Christ to the People" (1836-1857)

A. Ivanov "The Appearance of Christ to the People" (1836-1857). Oil on canvas, 540x750 cm. The State Tretyakov Gallery
The artist worked on the painting in Italy. For her, he performed over 600 studies from nature. A well-known art lover and philanthropist Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov acquired sketches, because. it was impossible to acquire the painting itself - it was painted by order of the Academy of Arts and already, as it were, was bought by it.
Plot: based on the third chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. On the first plan, closest to the viewer, a crowd of Jews is depicted who came to the Jordan after the prophet John the Baptist to wash the sins of a past life in the waters of the river. The prophet is dressed in a yellowed camel skin and a light-colored cloak of coarse fabric. Lush long hair and a thick beard frame his pale, thin face with slightly sunken eyes. A high clean forehead, a firm and intelligent look, a courageous, strong figure, muscular arms and legs - everything reveals in him an outstanding intellectual and physical strength, inspired by the ascetic life of a hermit. In one hand he holds a cross, and with the other he points out to the people a lonely figure of Christ, which has already appeared in the distance on a rocky road. John explains to the audience that the walking person brings them a new truth, a new dogma.
One of the central images of this work is John the Baptist. Christ is still perceived by the viewer in the general contours of his figure, calm and majestic. The face of Christ can be seen only with some effort. The figure of John is in the foreground of the picture and dominates. His inspired appearance, full of severe beauty, heroic character stand in contrast to the feminine and graceful John the Theologian standing next to him, give an idea of the prophet - the herald of truth.
John is surrounded by a crowd of people, motley in their social character and reacting differently to the words of the prophet. Behind John the Baptist are the apostles, future disciples and followers of Christ: the young, red-haired, temperamental John the Theologian in a yellow chiton and red cloak, and the gray-bearded Andrew the First-Called, wrapped in an olive cloak. Next to them is a “doubter”, distrustful of what the prophet says. Before John the Baptist - a group of people. Some eagerly listen to his words, others look at Christ. Here is a wanderer, and a frail old man, and some people, frightened by the words of John, perhaps representatives of the Jewish administration.
At the feet of John the Baptist - sitting on the ground, on the bedspreads, a rich elderly man and his slave, squatting next to him - yellow, emaciated, with a rope around his neck. The idea of the artist about the moral rebirth of a person is in this image of a humiliated person who for the first time heard words of hope and consolation.
In the right part of the foreground of the picture, a slender, handsome half-naked young man, probably belonging to a wealthy family, throws back his magnificent curls from his face, looks at Christ. Next to a handsome half-naked young man is a boy and his father, "trembling." They have just bathed and are now listening to John excitedly. Their greedy attention symbolizes the readiness to accept new truth, new teaching. Behind the group of the red-haired youth and the "trembling" stand out the Jewish high priests and scribes, hostile to the words of John, supporters of the official religion. There are various feelings on their faces: distrust and hostility, indifference, clearly expressed hatred of a red-faced old man with a thick nose, depicted in profile. Further in the crowd are a penitent in a dark red cloak, several women and Roman soldiers sent by the administration to keep order. Around the rocky coastal plain is visible. In the depths - the city, on the horizon - the bulk of the blue mountains and above them a clear blue sky.

Ilya Sergeevich Glazunov (b. 1930)

Soviet and Russian painter, teacher. Founder and rector of the Russian Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture I. S. Glazunova. Academician.
Born in Leningrad in the family of a historian. He survived the blockade of Leningrad, and his father, mother, grandmother and other relatives died. At the age of 12, he was taken out of the besieged city through Ladoga along the "Road of Life". After the blockade was lifted in 1944, he returned to Leningrad. He studied at the Leningrad Secondary Art School, at the LIZhSA named after I. E. Repin under the People's Artist of the USSR Professor B. V. Ioganson.
In 1957, the first exhibition of Glazunov's works was held at the Central House of Artists in Moscow, which was a great success.

I. Glazunov "Nina" (1955)
Since 1978 he taught at the Moscow Art Institute. In 1981, he organized and became director of the All-Union Museum of Decorative, Applied and Folk Art in Moscow. Since 1987 - Rector of the All-Russian Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture.
His early paintings of the mid-1950s-early 1960s. performed in an academic manner and are characterized by psychologism and emotionality. Sometimes the influence of French and Russian impressionists and Western European expressionism is noticeable: Leningrad Spring, Ada, Nina, The Last Bus, 1937, Two, Loneliness, Metro, Pianist Dranishnikov", "Giordano Bruno".
The author of a series of graphic works dedicated to the life of a modern city: "Two", "Split", "Love".
Author of the painting "The Mystery of the 20th Century" (1978). The picture presents the most outstanding events and heroes of the past century with its struggle of ideas, wars and disasters.
Author of the canvas "Eternal Russia", depicting the history and culture of Russia for 1000 years (1988).

I. Glazunov "Eternal Russia" (1988)

I. Glazunov "Eternal Russia" "(1988). Oil on canvas, 300x600
In one picture - the whole history of Russia. World art knows no such example. The picture "Eternal Russia" can be called a textbook of Russian history in its true grandeur, a song to the glory of Russia.
Glazunov was the author of graphic stylized works dedicated to Russian antiquity: the cycles "Rus" (1956), "Kulikovo Field" (1980), etc.
Author of a series of illustrations of the main works of F. M. Dostoevsky.
Author of the panel "The Contribution of the Peoples of the Soviet Union to World Culture and Civilization" (1980), UNESCO building, Paris.
Created a series of portraits of Soviet and foreign political and public figures, writers, artists: Salvador Allende, Indira Gandhi, Urho Kekkonen, Federico Fellini, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Gina Lollobrigida, Mario del Monaco, Domenico Modugno, Innokenty Smoktunovsky, cosmonaut Vitaly Sevastyanov, Leonid Brezhnev, Nikolai Shchelokov and others.

I. Glazunov "Portrait of the writer Valentin Rasputin" (1987)
Author of a series of works "Vietnam", "Chile" and "Nicaragua".
Theater artist: designed the design for the productions of the operas The Tale of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevronia by N. Rimsky-Korsakov at the Bolshoi Theatre, Prince Igor by A. Borodin and The Queen of Spades by P. Tchaikovsky at the Berlin Opera, for the ballet Masquerade » A. Khachaturian at the Odessa Opera House, etc.
Created the interior of the Soviet embassy in Madrid.
Participated in the restoration and reconstruction of the buildings of the Moscow Kremlin, including the Grand Kremlin Palace.
The author of new canvases "Dispossession", "Expulsion of merchants from the Temple", "The Last Warrior", new landscape sketches from life in oil, made in free technique; lyrical self-portrait of the artist "And again spring".

I. Glazunov "The Return of the Prodigal Son" (1977)

Sergei Ivanovich Smirnov (b. 1954)

Born in Leningrad. He graduated from the Moscow State Academic Art Institute named after V. I. Surikov and currently teaches painting and composition at this institute. The main themes of the works are urban landscapes of Moscow, Russian holidays and life of the early 20th century, landscapes of the Moscow region and the Russian north.

S. Smirnov "Waters and Bells" (1986). Paper, watercolor
He is a member of the Russian World Association of Artists, which unites contemporary representatives of the classical direction of Russian painting, who continue and develop the traditions of academism.

S. Smirnov "Epiphany frosts"
What is the task set by contemporary academic artists? One of them, Nikolai Anokhin, answered this question: “The main task is to comprehend the highest divine harmony, to trace the hand of the Creator of the universe. This is what is beautiful: depth, beauty, maybe not always shining with an external effect, but what, in fact, is a real aesthetics. We strive to develop and comprehend the craftsmanship and mastery of form that our predecessors had.”

N. Anokhin "In the old house of the Rakitins" (1998)

In the painting of Italy at the turn of the XVI-XVII centuries. there are two main artistic directions: one is associated with the work of the Carracci brothers and received the name "Bologna academicism", the other - with the art of one of the largest artists of Italy in the 17th century. Caravaggio.

Bologna academicism- a direction that arose at the end of the 16th century. and took in the XVII century. significant place in Italian painting. Attitudes towards its representatives have changed over time. Contemporaries considered academicians to be outstanding masters, but a century later they were completely forgotten, and in the 19th century. accused of imitating the weaknesses of Renaissance painting.

“The Academy of those who have entered the right path” was the name of a small private workshop created in Bologna in 1585 by the artists cousins Lodovico (1555-1619), Agostino (1557-1602) and Annibale (1560-1609) Carracci. Hence the name - "Bologna academism". They wanted to educate masters who would have a true idea of beauty and were able to revive the art of painting, which, in their opinion, had fallen into decay.

This point of view was well founded. In the second half of the XVI century. The painters were greatly influenced by the theorists of Mannerism, a trend that arose in the art of Italy as early as the 1920s and 1930s. They argued that there are no artistic ideals that are common to all. The artist creates his works on the basis of divine inspiration, by its nature spontaneous, unpredictable and not limited by craft rules. Paints cannot convey the fullness and subtlety of the plan that God put into the soul of the artist, and therefore it is impossible to judge the value of a painting by its technical execution. Mastery training was not considered such a big deal.

The Academy opposed these views. There is an eternal ideal of beauty, the Carracci brothers said, it is embodied in the art of antiquity, the Renaissance, and above all in the work of Raphael. At the academy, the focus was on constant exercise in technical skill. According to the Carracci brothers, his level depended not only on the dexterity of the brush, but also on the education and sharpness of the intellect, so theoretical courses appeared in their program: history, mythology and anatomy.

The principles of the Bologna Academy, which was the prototype of all European academies of the future, can be traced in the work of the most talented of the brothers - Annibale Carracci (1560-1609). Carracci carefully studied and studied nature. He believed that nature is imperfect and needs to be transformed, ennobled in order for it to become a worthy subject of depiction in accordance with classical norms. Hence the inevitable abstraction, rhetoric of Carracci's images, pathos instead of genuine heroism and beauty. The art of Carracci turned out to be very timely, corresponding to the spirit of the official ideology, and was quickly recognized and spread.

The Carracci brothers are masters of monumental and decorative painting. One of the first works of the Bolognese academicians and their most famous work was made by Annibale and Agostino Carracci and several students in 1597-1604. - painting of the gallery of the Palazzo Farnese in Rome on the subjects of Ovid's "Metamorphoses" in the Palazzo Farnese in Rome. In their design, one can feel the strong influence of the monumental painting of Michelangelo. However, unlike him, the Carracci brothers in the first place are the abstract beauty of painting - the correctness of the drawing, the balance of color spots, a clear composition. The perfection of the form occupied them much more than the content. Annibale Carracci was also the creator of the so-called heroic landscape, that is, an idealized, fictional landscape, because nature, like man (according to the Bolognese), is imperfect, rude and requires refinement in order to be represented in art. This is a landscape deployed with the help of curtains in depth, with balanced masses of clumps of trees and an almost obligatory ruin, with small figures of people serving only as staffing to emphasize the greatness of nature. The color of the Bolognese is just as conditional: dark shadows, local colors clearly arranged according to the scheme, light sliding through the volumes.

At the turn of the XVI-XVII centuries, the Bolognese painter Annibale Carracci (1560 - 1609), like Caravaggio, he became a reformer of Italian painting. Unlike the Lombard rebel, he was a zealous guardian of the old cultural traditions of antiquity and the Renaissance, was the court painter of Cardinal Odoardo Farnese, was a brilliant decorator who created fresco paintings along with easel works. Going in different ways, both of them had a great influence on painting, not only Italian, but also other art schools that were being formed in the 17th century.

The works of Annibale Carracci convey a new attitude to the national tradition, which became necessary for the artist, when a different sense of nature and history was born at the end of the Renaissance style. The task of a new incarnation of reality was acute for Carracci, as well as for Caravaggio. But his elevated, and not free and spiritually relaxed, like a Lombard, attitude to the past, to tradition, takes on the character of an ideal, which the artist seeks to imitate. Naturalness and idealization, reality and myth intertwined in Annibale's art. And this principle of correlating nature with the ideal, the intellectual adjustment of the real image will form the basis of the activity of the masters of the classicism style, at the origins of which was the art of Annibale Carracci.

Annibale was the most gifted painter among the three Carracci brothers. He studied painting with his cousin Lodovico (1555 - 1619), engraving - with his brother Agostino (1557 - 1602). He traveled through the cities of Italy, visiting Venice, Parma, possibly Florence, and from 1582 he worked in Bologna. In the same year, the Carracci brothers founded here the "Academy of those who entered the true path" - one of the pictorial academies that existed in Italy since the end of the 16th century. From its walls came such famous masters of the Bologna school as Guercino, Domenichino, G. Reni, J. Lanfranco. The principles of education, as in all academies, were based on copying old Italian masters, studying nature, on subordinating the last idea of selection, that is, correlation with some ideal samples that embodied the highest achievements of the masters of the 16th century. However, this method of embodying nature did not mean an eclectic combination of individual elements borrowed from different artists, did not detract from the poetic merits of the painting of each of the brothers and, especially, Annibale. A tragic role in the subsequent assessment of the activities of the Carracci brothers was played by the fake of their biographer Malvasia, who attributed the sonnet composed by him to Agostino and the letters to Annibala, in which the brothers' method was presented as eclectic, based on the theory of selection. This made it difficult for a long time to find out the true value of achieving a synthesis of reality and the ideal of Annibale.

During the Bolognese period (1582-1594), altar images, paintings of mythological content, landscapes, portraits, and several depictions of scenes of reality were created. The beauty of an idyllic world with mythological characters immersed in an environment shrouded in a delicate haze of light and air is conveyed in the canvases of the 1590s “Adonis Finds Venus” (1595, Vienna, Museum of the History of Art) and “Bacchante with Cupid and Two Satyrs” (Florence, Uffizi Gallery ). The images of deities, correlated with ancient plastic art and Renaissance painting as a kind of cultural tradition of the past, embody the elemental sensual fullness of life. This is facilitated by the color energy of the canvases, the bright coolish luminous colors of Annibale's Bolognese palette.

A different, not ennobled and hedonistic, but rough world of reality is depicted by Annibale in the painting "The Butcher's Shop" (early 1580s, Oxford, Christ Church). The meat carcasses written in intense red color, the common type of people working in a butcher's shop, however, does not evoke a feeling of frightening brutal naturalism. The writing of such "market scenes" was common among the masters of Northern Italy.

The grotesque side of Annibale's talent was revealed in his portrait-types "The Bean Eater" (early 1580s, Rome, Colonna Gallery), "Young Man with a Monkey" (Late 1580s, Florence, Uffizi Gallery). Annibale notes everything that does not correspond to the ideal, emphasizing the rudeness, inferiority, characteristic nature, conveying it truthfully, without correlation with artistic ideals. A wealth of unexpected connections with specific life situations manifested itself in Annibale's self-portraits: "Self-portrait with Antonio's nephew" (Milan, Brera Pinacoteca), "Self-portrait on a palette" (1590s, St. Petersburg, State Hermitage Museum; repetition - 1595 ?, Florence, Gallery Uffizi), revealing his keen interest in nature.

Ideal and nature appear in reconciled high harmony in the works Landscape with Flight into Egypt (c. 1603, Rome, Doria Pamphilj Gallery) and Rest of the Holy Family on the Flight into Egypt (c. 1600, St. Petersburg, State Hermitage Museum). ). Panoramas reproducing a huge universal picture of the world with ideal nature - hills, gorges, castles, visible in the distance by the river and the sea - include individual, chamber-sounding figures of saints, a shepherd, a boatman, a herd of animals. This ideal cosmic world and the concrete world are combined plastically and emotionally, giving rise to a feeling of a quiet idyllic flow of life. Annibale Carracci became the creator of the classic, so-called heroic, image of nature.

And at the same time, a sense of academic coldness in the perception of the classical heritage is palpable in the canvases (“Where are you coming?”, ca. 1600, London, National Gallery) and “Hercules at the Crossroads” (Naples, Capodimonte Gallery) with large, sculpture-like figures of biblical and mythological characters.

The murals in the gallery of Cardinal Farnese were the most significant work of the Roman period (1595-1609). The program of murals for the vault, end walls and lunettes was drawn up by Cardinal Agukchi and inspired by Ovid's Metamorphoses. A space opens up before the audience, in which the boundaries between illusion and reality are shifted. The transitions from framed paintings to the illusory architectural decoration of the wall are continuous, changing the ratio of "real" and "illusory", changing the roles of reality and decoration. Dynamic movement permeates the decorative rhythm of the paintings. And the principle of the spontaneous, as if uncontrolled flow of this movement, consistently carried out by Annibale, anticipates the principles of monumental baroque painting. The world of beauty and love, recreated by the artist's imagination, breathes with hedonistic sensuality - from the depicted breakthroughs into the open sky in the corners of the hall, it seems to be fanned by air and illuminated by the sun, giving a luminous dullness to bright saturated colors. "Ideal" and "real" in their inseparable synthesis regain inspirational sound in this painting.

The tragic themes of the burial and mourning of Christ, the Flood, the execution of saints excite the artist in his later work. The Pieta Farnese (1599-1600, Naples, Capodimonte Gallery) was written for the cardinal's family. The appeal to the traditional iconographic scheme did not prevent Annibale from filling the scene with deeply truthful feelings; giving the scene pathos, sincerely convey the grief of Mary, supporting the body of Christ.

Among the first generation of academy graduates, Guido Reni (1575-1642), Domenichino (real name Domenico Zampieri, 1581 - 1641) and Guercino (real name Francesco Barbieri, 1591 - 1666) were especially popular. The works of these painters are distinguished by a high level of technology, but at the same time, emotional coldness, a superficial reading of the plots. Nevertheless, each of them has interesting features.

Thus, in Domenichino's painting The Last Communion of St. Jerome (1614), a very expressive landscape attracts the viewer much more than the main action, pompous and overloaded with details.

"Aurora" (1621 - 1623), Guercino's plafond in the Roman villa Ludovisi, amazes the viewer with the breathtaking energy with which the goddess of dawn moves on a chariot and other characters. Guercino's drawings are interesting, as a rule, they are made with a pen with a light wash with a brush. In these compositions, the virtuosity of technique has become no longer a craft, but a high art.

A special place among academicians is occupied by Salvator Rosa (1615-1673). His landscapes have nothing to do with beautiful antiquity. Usually these are images of dense forest thickets, lonely rocks, desert plains with abandoned ruins. People are certainly present here: soldiers, vagabonds, especially often robbers (in Italy in the 17th century, gangs of robbers sometimes kept cities and entire provinces in fear). The robber in the works of Rosa symbolizes the presence in nature of some kind of gloomy, elemental force. The influence of academic traditions manifests itself in a clear, orderly composition, in an effort to "ennoble" and "correct" nature.

For all their inconsistency, the Bologna academicians played a very important role in the development of painting. The principles of artist education developed by the Carracci brothers formed the basis of the academic system of education that still exists today.

History of Russian culture. XIX century Yakovkina Natalya Ivanovna

§ 2. CLASSICISM AND "ACADEMISM" IN RUSSIAN PAINTING

The direction of classicism arose in Russian fine arts in the same way as in literature and theater in the second half of the 18th century, but unlike them, there was a longer period, covering the entire first half of the 19th century and fully coexisting with romanticism and sentimentalism.

In painting and sculpture, as well as in literature, adherents of classicism proclaimed ancient art as a role model, from where they drew themes, plot situations, heroes. The main tendencies of classicism were also embodied in works of art: the affirmation of the ideas of monarchical statehood, patriotism, devotion to the sovereign, the priority of public duty, overcoming personal interests and feelings in the name of duty to the country, the sovereign. In ancient samples, the artists saw examples of human beauty and greatness. Painting and sculpture strove for the laconicism of the story, plastic clarity and beauty of form. At the same time, as in other areas of art, certain canons of artistic representation were obligatory for them. So, choosing a plot from ancient mythology or the Bible, the artist built the composition in such a way that the main action was necessarily in the foreground. It was embodied in a group of figures, naked or dressed in spacious antique robes. The feelings and actions of the depicted persons were manifested in body movements, also conditional. For example, to express shame or sadness, it was recommended to bow the hero's head down, if compassion - to one side, command - to raise it up.

Each character in the picture personified a certain human quality - fidelity, tenderness, straightforwardness or deceit, courage, cruelty, etc. However, regardless of what property this or that person was the spokesman for, his figure and movements had to correspond to the ancient canons of beauty.

In the first decade of the 19th century, thanks to the patriotic upsurge caused by the Patriotic War of 1812, classicism was most widespread in Russian sculpture and painting. Ideological basis | classicism - the embodiment of sublime feelings and images in JI works of art - was in tune with the public mood of that time. The idea of selfless service to the Motherland is embodied by artists in plots and patterns drawn from ancient and Russian history. So, on the plot of the Roman legend, the artist Bruni created the painting “The Death of Camilla, sister of Horace”, in which the thought of the crime of love and pity towards the enemies of the fatherland is declared. Numerous samples of high patriotism are drawn by artists from ancient Russian history. In 1804, the sculptor Martos, on his own initiative, began to work on the monument to Minin and Pozharsky. Only after the end of the Patriotic War in 1818, the government decided to install it in Moscow on Red Square. It is curious that the news of this aroused the liveliest and, one might say, national interest. Contemporaries noted that already during the transportation of the monument from St. Petersburg to Moscow through the canals of the Mariinsky system, crowds of people gathered along the banks and looked at the monument. An unusual gathering of people was at the opening of the monument in Moscow. “The surrounding shops, the roofs of Gostiny Dvor, the towers of the Kremlin were strewn with people who wanted to enjoy this new and extraordinary spectacle.”

At the end of the Patriotic War, a young artist A. Ivanov (father of the famous author of the painting “The Appearance of Christ to the People” A. A. Ivanov), a man of advanced views, filled with patriotic feelings, created the paintings “The Feat of a Young Kyivian in 968” (1810) and “Mstislav’s Combat Remote with Rededea "(1812). In the course of the war, episodes of military events capture the imagination of artists and convince them that examples of military prowess and heroic patriotism can be drawn not only from antiquity. In 1813, Demut-Malinovsky's sculpture "Russian Scaevola" appeared, praising the feat of the Russian peasant, who, being captured by the French, who put a brand on his hand, chopped it off to get rid of the shameful sign. The work was enthusiastically received by the public. At the same time, the conventionality of the classical artistic manner did not interfere with perception. The audience was not embarrassed by the fact that the “Russian Scaevola”, like his ancient prototype, was depicted with a naked torso, which not only did not correspond to domestic traditions, but also to the climate of Russia. By the way, the young man from Kiev in Ivanov's painting, dressed in a kind of light tunic, according to the classical canons, forbade it. depict "ugly" poses and body movements, extremely gracefully and without visible effort ran away from enemy pursuit. This convention was perceived by contemporaries as the usual symbolic designation of high civic virtues. Therefore, the works of Martos, Demut-Malinovsky and other artists, who were very popular at that time, marked the flowering of classicism in Russian fine arts.

However, from the second quarter of the 19th century, when government reaction was established in Russia after the suppression of the Decembrist uprising for a long time, the lofty civil ideas of classicism received a different, official rethinking in the spirit of the famous Uvarov triad - Orthodoxy, autocracy and nationality. A striking example of this new stage of classic fine art is the famous painting by Bruni, a venerable professor, and then the rector of the Academy of Arts - "The Copper Serpent". The dramatic plot of the work is drawn by the author from the biblical story. The Israelites, led out of captivity by Moses, murmured against God and were punished for this by a rain of snakes. Only those who bowed before the figure of the Copper Serpent could be saved from death. The picture depicts the moment when the Israelites, having learned about the Divine command, rushed to the statue, healthy people help the sick and the elderly crawl to it, mothers stretch their children forward. And only one - doubting and protesting - lies defeated, struck by Divine punishment.

This is how the ideological essence of the work is revealed - any protest is condemned from above; only humility and humility are pleasing to the kings of earth and heaven.

Gradually, classicism, which has lost its high civic pathos, is decaying. With the growth of the social and democratic movement of the 1930s and 1940s, the constant appeal to antique samples, the stubborn neglect of reality as a rude, unworthy of art, looks more and more anachronistic. The conventions of classic works, which were previously perceived as a means of reinforcing the ideological content, now, with the loss of high citizenship of the work, prick the eyes of the audience. The lack of deep content cannot be compensated by the beauty of forms, the impeccability of the drawing, the clarity of the composition. Beautiful, but cold works of masters of this direction are losing popularity.

Classicism, which in the Russian fine arts exhausted its artistic and ideological possibilities in the second quarter of the 19th century, is expressed in the so-called academism (highlighted by me - N. Ya.), the direction taken by the Academy as the only art school.

Academism, conserving the usual classic forms, brought them to the level of an immutable law, while ignoring the civic height of the content. These principles formed the basis of the academic system of vocational training. At the same time, academism became a legalized, "government" direction in the visual arts. Leading professors of the Academy are turning into furious zealots of official art. They create works that promote official virtues, loyal feelings, such as, for example, Shebuev's painting "The Feat of the Merchant Igolkin." It reproduces an episode of the legend that tells that the Russian merchant Igolkin during the Northern War, who was captured by the Swedes, while in prison, heard how the Swedish sentries taunt Peter I, rushed at them and, at the cost of his life, supported the prestige of his sovereign. Naturally, such works met with approval in the ruling circles. Their creators received new, well-paid orders, awards, and were nominated in every possible way. Bruni becomes rector of the Academy of Arts, chief consultant on the purchase of works of art for the Hermitage and royal residences. F. Tolstoy - vice-president of the Academy, its actual leader. However, succeeding in everyday life, these masters are experiencing a severe creative crisis. Degradation marks the later work of Bruni, Martos, F. Tolstoy. And it is noteworthy that academism did not give rise to a single significant artist to replace the departing luminaries. Epigonism and imitation in terms of art, the official ideology as an ideological basis - these are the roots that were supposed to nourish the art of academism. It is not surprising that this "tree" gave such miserable shoots. At the same time, the creatively weaker this trend became, the more fierce the opposition of the "academicians" to everything new in art became.

author Woerman Karl

1. Peculiarities of Central Italian Painting Ever since the Florentine Leonardo da Vinci awakened the dormant forces of painting, it has been consciously moving throughout Italy towards the goal of making the painting live a fuller real life and at the same time be more perfect.